Protesters to Ducey: Reject border policy
Rally urges denunciation of enforcement effort that is splitting families
Dozens of protesters rallied outside the Arizona Capitol on Tuesday, demanding to speak to Gov. Doug Ducey about border policies that are separating children from their parents.
The protesters said they wanted to denounce Ducey’s support of “policies that tear families apart at the border and his record of continually failing kids on education, healthcare, and more,” the Facebook event stated.
A children’s playground was set up on the Capitol grounds. Protesters said children should be playing on that play-
ground instead of being held in cages.
“This is really inspiring and very motivating to see so many people of my own community out here today to prove that young people don’t support the fact that children are being put in cages by our current administration,” said Audry Ruiz, a spokeswoman for Nextgen Arizona.
Much of the concern among the protesters involved a recent audio recording released of children crying for their parents inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention facility.
“I can’t understand why anyone would think that’s humane,” Ruiz said. “Regardless of party, that’s not OK.”
‘Most sacred thing: our children’
Betty Guardado, vice president of the group United Here, told participants at Tuesday’s rally that the Trump administration crossed a line with the policy that “touched the most sacred thing: our children.”
Ducey has not denounced the policy. When asked about it last week, he said, “I don’t want to see children separated from their parents. My heart breaks for these families. At the same time, we need to look at the role of parental responsibility when an adult is approaching our border conducting illegal activity with a child.”
Guardado told the crowd, in Spanish, that “we will take out Doug Ducey and put in a new governor.”
Trying to reach Ducey
After the rally outside, the crowd moved inside the Executive Tower and lined up to go up the elevators to the Governor’s Office.
Arizona Department of Public Safety officers only let a few protesters up at a time due to fire-code restrictions. Those who did make it to the eighth-floor office lobby were met with closed doors and told no one would be able to talk to them.
Guardado was the first to enter the lobby with her two children.
“I heard that recording this morning as I woke up, and the only thing I could do was cry. I could not imagine myself without my children,” Guardado said. “I love my children and I’m fighting for everyone’s children.”
She said she was outraged that Ducey has not taken a stance against the policy and would not speak to protesters.
“I could not imagine myself without my children. I love my children and I’m fighting for everyone’s children.”
Ricardo Zamudio Guillen, one of the few protesters who was allowed up to the lobby, said he cried when he first heard the audio of the child crying.
“I myself made a journey with my parents as well to the U.S. as a kid,” Guillen said. “I couldn’t fathom just the idea of having a mother and a child in different cages. You can only imagine what is happening to these children. That’s not going to be able to be erased.”
Fewer than a dozen protesters were allowed up to the lobby. After nearly 30 minutes, the group returned to the larger crowd waiting outside.
State House Democrats, in a news release, called on Ducey to withdraw the National Guard from the border with Mexico. Ducey had sent troops there in response to a request from President Donald Trump.
That call was echoed at the rally by David Garcia, a Democrat who is running for governor.
Garcia said Ducey should announce that “we are not going to use our state government resources to separate families.”
Garcia also took part in a march to a detention center in Texas on Saturday, accompanied, he told the crowd, by his daughter.
Garcia said the march ended outside the facility where children are being housed in tents and said the crowd shouted “as loudly as we could, so the kids inside could know we are there.”
Democratic leaders and protesters vowed to continue to pressure Ducey to oppose the Trump policy.
Third day of protest
This protest is the third this week over the treatment of children in U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention facilities.
On Monday, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse in downtown Phoenix to protest Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.
On Sunday, a vigil and protest were held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in central Phoenix.